Black Lace
by rese
Summary: In that grove, a moment of truth, Jo tells Laurie of another. A woman. mild slash. jo/laurie


**Black Lace**

By rese

Summary: In that grove, a moment of truth, Jo tells Laurie of another. A woman.

Warnings: Honestly, it's disappointing that I'm going to have to warn some readers that this has slash. Do people still do this? Well then I'm going to warn you I use the bible too. Irresponsibly *laughs manically* Honestly, it is the slightest of slash fics I could have done.

_A/N:_ _Elizabeth Harker was dropping a note on ideas for fic on lj, and me being a big snoop I read them and as soon as I saw the last one this story just leapt out of my fingers. I'm only sorry it didn't get hot and heavy enough :/ goddammit Jo loosen your morals!_

Jo/Laurie-ish : Jo somehow ended up having hot girl on girl relations in New York. And for some reason confides in Laurie about it. Probably too far fetched to write, and I'd rather read it anyway. 

_As she'd preferred to read, this one is obviously for her!_

_So it's totes obvious, but I am not L.M.A. and as such I hold no claim to Little Women or its characters. Nor the first few lines of dialogue I've managed to bastardise for this fic. By golly was this fun to write for easter!_

_Ended up using American Standard version (1901) for the bible quotes. Also, I took a lot of liberty in using Lakme as the opera – it's one of my favs – even though it wasn't performed until 1883 which I don't think really fits in too well with LW timeline… oh well!_

_I have developed a terrible habit for playing with tenses. I am so very sorry everyone. But hey! Finally questioning!Jo fic :)_

…

"If you say you love him, I know I shall do something desperate."

Jo very nearly laughed in his face. It was the excitement of the moment, her own little drama playing out between them as Laurie swore that made her heart leap and her hands throw themselves up as she defended the Professor.

"Don't swear, Teddy! He isn't old, nor anything bad, but good and kind, and the best friend I've got, next to you. Pray, don't fly into a passion. I want to be kind, but I know I shall get angry if you abuse my Professor. I haven't the least idea of loving him or anybody else."

Laurie leaned on that moss post, taking her hands in his.

"No," she shook her head. Jo looked past him to the river and felt that now, more than ever she owed him her honesty. It would hurt him terribly and he might never speak to her after the truth came out, but Jo knew better than to hide her secrets and pretend her past sins never happened. He was waiting to hear her reasons for dashing his every hope and dream and now was her chance.

"That's not exactly true; I've tried to love another."

Laurie took a deep breath, squinting down at their joined hands, forcing himself to stay. "Jo –"

"Wait; let me finish." She shook their hands firmly, pulling them to the grass to sit. Laurie didn't let her go or utter another word; he simply stared at her boots and tried to keep his jaw from quaking in the effort not to stop her.

"She was really a… perfect stranger."

His eyes rose to her face and Jo could feel her heart pressing against her ribs in his silence. Laurie released his grip on her hands slowly, pulling them away to fold his arms against this sudden and rather unexpected direction. He stared at her in confusion.

"She?"

Jo nodded softly, hearing the midday breeze rustle the grass against the stile beside them. She closed her eyes and told him the truth.

…

She is… beautiful.

Her paper fan is trimmed with black lace. Jo watches the girl's eyes, darkened with kohl and wonders how many men have fallen into their depths. They are a warm honey colour, slow to blink, heavy-lidded, promising so many things she doesn't yet understand. And she wants to.

Jo feels something run through her from a place deep inside her belly. It rushes over her arms, down into her toes and she has to look away, clutching her own fan tightly in her right hand.

The opera is different without the Professor.

Jo knows the Book, she knows it as well as any of her sisters and she tries desperately to remember Leviticus but thinks only of Corinthians, two desperately separate testaments at either end of that leather-bound script that sits atop the table beside her bed.

_Taketh no account of evil._

She feels that something again and realises it's a thrill. Her skin rises in little goosebumps, her bare arms feel cold above the stage. Jo holds a tentative hand to her heart and feels it thumping heavily, it is trying to tell her something or escape from her chest, she doesn't know which.

Another woman joins the duet as they are slowly pulled across the stage in a wooden barge. Both women sing so perfectly Jo isn't sure they aren't angels dressed in ruby-red clothes, their busts heaving with every long breath to finish the passage. It sounds like the most beautiful thing she's ever heard and yet even now Jo looks to the woman across the theatre, leaning across the opposing rail above the stage.

Both of them are trespassers to this performance.

The gown the woman wears is cut lower than Jo's, coming to a fine deep point between two pert breasts and Jo wonders why - not strictly for the first time - that is the part of her that should captivate her attention so much. They are like creamy mounds, so soft yet so firmly pressed against the low collar of her golden gown. It is the kind of skin she would so very much like to touch, to _know_ just what it truly is like.

Jo's own hand slips, just barely an inch lower so that her fingertips are brushing against her own soft flesh. It is nothing like the real thing, she is sure, for her own dress covers her quite modestly and all she can feel is the coarseness of the cheap material that will keep her warm when she steps outside to the streets of New York.

Cursing her own foolishness Jo swiftly pulls her hand safely into her lap, touching her lace-gloved hand, still wrapped tightly around her fan. Jo's fan is nothing like that of the lady on the other side of the theatre. Hers is plain, only well enough to take to the opera because of the little detailed filigree Meg once knotted into the stiff fabric. It does not shine in the down-lights of the stage and she clutches it tightly shut, the string wound around her wrist.

The two singers are at last tugged off-stage and Jo returns to watching them, lest the woman think she is staring. The two heavy-busted women climb out, clutching their brightly coloured skirts as they are directed around by a slight boy with a cap, readying them for their next entrance.

In front of the little stage is a small orchestra that continues to play as the scene is changed behind the closed curtains. Jo looks across the theatre at the seated guests and tries to find anyone who looks as deeply at her as the woman on the other side of the stage nook.

No one else sees her.

_Love suffereth long_.

Her eyes betray her and she looks back at the woman. She has lowered her black-lace fan and sits forward in her seat, her deep red lips, the colour of wine, part. Jo finds herself craning her body without realising it, waiting, her heart stuttering as she tries to make out what the woman will say.

A sudden crash comes from her left and Jo almost jumps out of her seat, her heart definitely in her ears as a stagehand smiles sheepishly his apology to her, trying to erect the new lights for the next scene. The light that fell lies in pieces below the boy's boots, the glass in little shards. Jo stares at the broken pieces as they reflect back the new light that now stands in its place, little misshapen jewels like sand or gold.

She looks back to the woman and sees the brocade of her tight, low bodice shining in the same light, the little beads like a detailed reconstruction of the mess at the boy's feet.

Jo wonders it if is a sign.

_Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth_.

The next act begins and the curtain opens but Jo can already see the singers, arranged in their positions across the comparatively bare stage. She knows the woman is watching the performers as well and relaxes, trying not to think about what it is about the girl that sets her on edge. The orchestra plays on, the song changing and morphing into harmonies and melodies that Jo is sure she can feel inside her as though they are actual hands and fingers reaching for her.

Beth had been the first to show her this feeling, and Laurie had conjured the same sensation at his piano in his grandfather's study. For a moment Jo closes her eyes and forgets the woman, the stage, and the theatre and loses herself to the memory of her two most favourite pianists on Laurie's mahogany stool, their fingers mixing, parting and joining as though four hands were only two to play the most magical song just for her.

Jo smiles and opens her eyes, knowing that nothing she sees on stage tonight will compare to that memory. It makes her heart ache, to know they are in another city, another state without her. Jo folds her arms and rests them on the rail, heedless to the innately boyish posture of her limbs as she watches the singers below. Her heart continues to ache on, knowing she cannot return to Concord if Laurie persists in those feelings she knows him to have. He doesn't understand if he will voice them he will ruin everything, their friendship, their carefully crafted casualness amongst family, everything dear and familiar to her will erase with any admission he makes.

That old feeling of frustration and dismay, some strange shaky emotion that changes and curls under her thoughts when she thinks of Laurie fills her even as the singers change notes and the sensation of fingers and hands from the music dissipates. Jo raises her gaze briefly to rest on the woman. She's watching her back, an amused turn of her lips telling Jo she is nothing but the confusing mess of boyish movements in a feminine frame. Every moment she is turning more into the woman her family wants her to be and the woman Laurie will hang his heart to.

She does not want to be that woman, not really. Deep down Jo wishes everything could continue as it had when they first met the Laurence boy. She wishes she could run without pins in her hair, that she could take Laurie's hand without feeling her heart skip and cause her to push him away. She wishes she could wear her hair in two tails and sit on her father's lap and climb trees without anyone's disapproval.

But reality has a way of moving on without her, dragging her along without any regard to her feelings. Jo sighs and leans back from the rail, watching the woman with a sidelong gaze. She tries to picture her dark, warm eyes on a girl Amy's age, her paper fan from an old box half moth-eaten reserved only for silliness. She cannot picture it and knows this woman will remain a mystery to her.

Perhaps it is better that way, Jo thinks and fiddles with her own fan, pushing thoughts of Laurie's black eyes from her mind. Her fingerless gloves let her skin touch Meg's pretty, though a little clumsy, cross-stitch and she tries to smile and tells herself things aren't as hopeless as they seem. She has her job, her dreams, her writing. She has her friend the Professor, the two girls, a room of her own.

She should be happy. She should feel content, Jo thinks, lifting her head to look out across the theatre. Instead she feels alone. Misunderstood.

Jo stands and knows she will never see the end of this opera. She hasn't understood a single thing without Professor Bhaer anyway. Jo gathers her skirts and finds the stairs to the door that leads from the backstage to the alleyway. She smiles at the two lads that let her in earlier that night. They wave from their crossed arms before they return to watching the setting curtains, their feet standing on the coils of rope that hold the heavy material to the ceiling lofts.

The air is cool outside and Jo is glad spring is almost on its way. She pulls her shawl around her, letting her fan fall, its string still securing it to her wrist. It won't be a long walk home but Jo finds herself worrying about the wet sidewalk and the grip of her boots.

"Wait!"

Jo turns and the woman she was staring at practically half the opera closes the theatre door behind her, long skirts spinning as she hurries to catch up with Jo. She picks up the edge of her fine gold-coloured dress and takes the four short steps to meet Jo in the alleyway.

"I'm sorry, you forgot this." The woman hands her Jo's program and she smiles pleasantly, her chest rising a falling from her haste.

"Oh! Thank you," Jo says a little uncertainly, taking the offered booklet from the woman, trying hard not to let her eyes rest on her bust. It is even smoother looking in the night. Jo finds herself blinking rapidly, looking out to the street as she gestures. "I'm going home, I don't want you to miss the performance…"

"Oh, never mind that." The girl dismisses Jo's concern with a wave of her hand before she takes her elbow and ushers them down the alley. "I've seen Lakme three times already." Jo likes the sound of her voice; it is a husky smooth sound, like the crushed velvet of a smoking jacket. The heels of their boots clack in time against the alleyway gravel as the songs of the opera inside weave their way faintly through the air.

"By the by, I'm Abigail." The woman does not offer her last name and Jo smiles back, the feeling of her long satin gloves like an insistent whisper against the shawl that covers her arm from the cold of the night.

"I'm Jo."

Abigail's painted smile flashes in the dark as they enter the street, the warm glow of the lights leading them down the opposite way Jo came.

"Jo… I like that. It suits you." Something is tugging inside Jo to make her smile so much with this woman she doesn't know a thing about. Abigail sounds sure and confident, she condescends but she isn't spiteful. Jo laughs as she is pulled down the street in a fast walk.

"Come along, I'm going to take you to a tavern, Jo." Abigail says her name again and Jo finds she hasn't liked anyone saying it better. She hasn't even asked what it shortens. "You'll like it there. There's none of that class separation that is so droll, don't you think?"

Jo nods without thinking, her arm flying out to balance as she almost topples on the icy sidewalk. There aren't too many people out but a coach drives past, the horses snorting in the cold air.

"That's why I sit in the backstage wings," Abigail explains, tossing her dark rich locks over her shoulder. Jo knows it is a French style from Amy's shared catalogues she used to bring home after school but the woman that holds her arm is so far from the Continent in both accent and manner Jo can't help but think she is in good hands.

She colours immediately after that thought.

"I think I've seen your friend before, the German fellow…"

"Oh yes," Jo says, grateful that she's found her voice again and can say something with some sort of intelligence. "He's a professor. He plays the violin." She adds uselessly and breathes a sigh of relief when a bar comes into view on the corner of the street.

Abigail gives them each a moment to stare up at the signs, lit by the gas of the street lamp. It will snow later tonight.

"This will do nicely," Abigail pushes open the heavy door and the stuffy bustle of people smoking and drinking overwhelms them both as they enter. Three older gentlemen sit puffing away on their pipes in the corner by the windows whilst a group of mostly young men – Jo counts only three ladies – huddle around the bar bench, swapping gossip and stories in each others ears over the noise of the filled pub.

"I don't drink!" Jo has to almost shout to be overheard but the woman only smiles back, taking her hand.

Abigail drags her further in, towards the back of the tavern where it is darker, lit only sparingly by a few candles. The booths are separated by walls of wood and glass, like little cabins on the train that brought Jo to New York. She follows Abigail into an empty one, a woman with an apron close on their heels.

"We'll have a bottle of the house, thank you." Abigail orders and Jo wonders if she should have blushed but the waitress walks off before there's even time. She feels so small in this space, so insignificant to any one of the other couples or groups, or the silent middle-aged men who sit with their hands nursing warm beer alone against the other wall.

"Do you like it?" Abigail pulls out her fan again, peering over the black lace at Jo who surveys the tavern's false finery. The woman opens her purse and Jo follows suit when their waitress returns as quick as she left, two glasses and an old re-used bottle filled with wine on her round tray.

"Ah, thank you very much." Abigail pulls an easy two coins from Jo's purse to add to her own, dropping them on the tray. Within another blink she takes the glasses, the waitress leaving the bottle between them without raising her eyes once. "Looks like it's red tonight, which is just as well. It gives us a little longer." She pulls the cork stopper off without fuss and fills the two glasses. "I _inhale_ white wine."

"Here."

Jo takes the offered glass and wonders how she let this woman, with her dark lashes and golden dress lead her so far away from Mrs. Kirke's. Everything has happened so fast since she left the theatre she isn't sure what to think. Out of basic politeness she studies the bottle of wine and weighs up the difference in the strength of her beliefs and her extraordinary desire to impress and please this woman. She feels Abigail's eyes glued to her as she lifts the glass and takes a sip, feeling a little of her soul crumble away with the taste on her tongue, knowing how many people, including herself she is disappointing just now. What possesses her, she questions, lowering the glass as the metallic, tart taste makes her squint back at Abigail.

"So… what do you think?" Abigail repeats her earlier question, taking her own swift sip, her fingers finding Jo's under the table.

"It's… 'quite a landscape'." She says, knowing just what Teddy should say were he sitting with this charming woman, being doted on. Abigail laughs prettily at the turn of phrase and Jo's eyes follow the beautiful shape of her lips as they grace the edge of the glass again. Jo wonders where her own grace and art has gone. Should she appear oafish or clumsy beside this woman - it has never felt so apparent in the face of her sex before.

Jo shakes her head and takes another sip of wine, feeling the sin of the place snake its way into her system. Her parents should never hear of this, she thinks, trying to marry her thoughts between lying and hiding something that would hurt them. She won't write to Beth of this, and even Meg would condemn her. Jo would condemn herself.

Amy is too young to understand. It would hand her permission to behave the same, and Jo already doesn't approve of the choices she has barely begun to realise she's made in the past half hour.

She feels too warm and more than sick.

"You did not come with your Professor, tonight?"

"Oh, he's not _my_ Professor." Jo blames the wine for the way her cheeks flare at Abigail's mistake. "He's my neighbour." What brings these words from her mouth? Jo wonders, taking another sip, cursing her hand and her tongue all at once.

"Well then," Abigail leans against the back of their shared bench, her hand moving to pet Jo's. She smiles as though she knows something Jo does not and the Massachusetts' woman thinks this city is still too much for her. Abigail's hand is like the wine, a vice, something she shouldn't touch and yet she can't let go. She doesn't want her to stop.

She hasn't stopped her yet.

Jo leans back too, their hands between their bodies, resting on the excess of their skirts. It has been a long January without her family, only having Bhaer's books and the girls' faces to cheer her day. The German man is a kind heart, a friend she never wants to lose and Jo knows she fears losing him when she returns to Concord. One more person she will have to surrender to time, each of their lives pulling in separate ways as Meg and Amy's have.

In the candlelight of their booth Jo studies Abigail's face closely and wonders if this person will even remember her tomorrow. Abigail watches the wine she sips, her long lashes directed to the table as her thumb moves tenderly across Jo's knuckles. The satin feels cool, almost impersonal though the action is so gentle and well-meant. Jo hardly knows what to think, the wine already hooking its way into her mind.

It addles her thinking, Jo convinces herself, leaning a little closer to catch the scent of Abigail's perfume. It smells like ash and champagne, the sweet remains of her old lemonade-stained gloves. Abigail turns and catches her half-lidded look. She doesn't move away or take offence, only a sly smile crosses her face and Jo is reminded of Laurie in the garret.

"You don't come often to the theatre, Jo."

Jo pulls away a little, unable to sit so close to this strange woman, a wine glass in her hand and believe herself in control of her own mind.

"No, this was the first time I've come without the Professor," she admits.

"I think you'd like it better if you came more."

Jo reclaims her hand from Abigails, looking at the stained wooden floor of the tavern as she finishes the last drop of wine from her glass.

"What is it you do, Jo?"

"I'm a writer." Jo replies automatically, leaving her glass on the table. Shame fills her as she stares at its empty contents

"A writer in New York. Fitting." Everything Abigail says sounds like the final judgment for her existence and Jo finds herself wondering why the woman should sound so authoritative. "You weren't born here I take it."

"No," Jo shakes her head, tearing her eyes from the glass to Abigail's pointed chin and round cheeks. Jo thinks she looks like every heroine she ever cast Meg to play. Abigail lounges there in the dark, lifting the bottle to pour them both another glass. It is her deliberateness, her surety that pulls Jo in, that leaves her waiting for the other woman to speak before she does. She commands the space around them.

Jo knows she has been commanded by this woman, the moment she laid eyes on her across the stage in the galley.

There is no room to argue with her in their small, shadowy little booth lit by a single melting candle. Jo realises she could not break free even if she wanted to. Running away seems like the furthest thing from her mind in the shroud of smoke and the smell of liquor. There is something so wrong about it all and yet Jo stays in her seat, turning into this woman as she takes a moment to drink.

"I was born here. I'll never leave." Everything is fact with this Abigail and Jo feels the woman's eyes smoulder into hers when she lifts them over her glass. "There are no writers in New Jersey, I think."

Jo laughs at her joke and doesn't say no to her second glass. Had she the Professor with her Jo knew it would be different, she could say no and have a friend to defend her, but here in this strange place with this strange woman Jo finds herself accepting the strangest facts and customs.

"Don't leave the City, Jo. Out there is a whole world of misinformed fools who will crush you under their heel. Better to sit here and drink, take in a show and sleep in the park."

"And freeze yourself to death!" Jo lifts the glass to her lips, the liquid slipping down her throat easier and easier each time. She doesn't understand what Abigail tells her; how can she know if she's never left New York?

"Freeze to death if you must, but never leave." Abigail snorts, finishing her second glass at once. Jo's eyes widen as she finally sees the little girl this strange woman must have been.

"Have you ever kissed a woman, Jo?"

Jo watches as Abigail pushes the empty glass beside the bottle, twisting in her seat to face her. Jo's eyes slip lower without thought to the swell of Abigail's breasts, each small breath pressing them into the tight cage of her dress.

"I've kissed my mother and sisters of course," Jo says quickly, only four sips into that second glass. She wants to pull her eyes away from Abigail, but that golden dress, her black-lined eyes and wine-stained lips hold her gaze like a prize.

"I mean," Abigail leans closer, "_kissed_. The way a man kisses a maiden. The way a husband kisses his wife." Jo cannot take her eyes off Abigail's rich red lips, like an inviting shadow in the fading candlelight.

Jo tries to breathe. "…No."

"Would you like to?"

Abigail waits for no answer before she presses her lips, so softly to Jo's half-open mouth. Something low down inside her sinks and Jo closes her eyes, unable to categorise or shape this feeling into intelligible meaning. No one has ever kissed her this way before. She feels the gentle wet swipe of something and jerks closer, realising it is Abigail's tongue. It is the wine, the lack of air filling her lungs, the feeling of Abigail's careful finger as it traces down the front of her dress, it is everything that suffocates her so that she can't breathe for drowning in the sensations.

Jo pulls away.

Her mind races to recover. Shouldn't two people be in love before they kiss? Shouldn't they know more than each others names? She should never have drunk that wine, watched that woman, gone to the theatre. A quiet night in – she should never have left Mrs. Kirke's.

Abigail's hand touches her back. "Did you like it?"

And that – that was the worst part.

"Yes," she breathes, taking hold of the table edge, trying to steady her heartbeat, her mind, her breath. Everything feels like it is spinning out of control, out of her control. She's lost her mind, Jo thinks. This woman has her mind. That's it.

"I have to go," she turns to Abigail, picking up her purse, her eyes falling to the woman's black-laced fan that lies beside their glasses. She scurries out of the booth, seeing only Abigail's eyes, black-rimmed, warm, liquid gold as they follow her hasty movements. "I have to go," she repeats and Jo almost runs out of the bar.

…

Laurie was quiet for the longest time and Jo worried that this was it – this was the moment she lost her dearest friend.

"I can't believe you took wine," He said at last and a laugh burst out between them. Jo smacked him gently on the arm as her anxiety quietened. Laurie took her hands once again and she felt safe and relieved. Should Peter bar her from those heavenly gates it could not diminish the generous dose of comfort her friend's hands gave her just then.

"Teddy you know not how my actions have tortured me since that night," Jo gushed, thinking of so many sleepless nights, watching the candle in his window as Beth fell asleep beside her. "I have relived it a thousand times, and yet there is nothing I can take back. I can never return to that theatre, to the moment I opened the door to my room that night and left for the opera. It is done, it's over but you don't know what a relief it is for someone else to know. Please say you aren't angry with me."

"Angry?" Laurie smiled a smile she recognised from flowers bought for other women. He watched their hands and Jo wondered if she should pull hers away. "No, I… Jo did you really kiss that woman?"

Jo rolled her eyes and tugged her hands back, upset that he should think she would make something like that up. "If you don't believe me, then you can't understand why I did it."

"Yes, I do!" Laurie followed her off the ground, grabbing for her wrist as Jo attempted to march off. "It's just – this proposal isn't going at all like I imagined."

He pulled her back closer to him, his thumb moving across her knuckles as Abigail's had so many months ago. Jo's arm froze and she felt the fight drain out of her as he tried to plea his case once again.

"You say that you don't care, that you've tried to change the feeling but I don't believe you for an instant. Jo, you've lied to yourself worse than you've ever lied to me. Even now you're as honest as a saint but you don't know what you've done, how you've hidden the truth from yourself. Jo, you love me. I know it. I know it now, more than ever."

"But I don't! Please, Teddy." She felt worse than before, her wits drawing quickly to an end. She'd bared her secret so that he might understand. If he could only come to realise that anything she could ever feel for him would be tainted, a warped version of reality that spun from nothing but her misguided feelings for her own kind. She didn't love him!

"You do." Laurie repeated, standing closer, his head bent awkwardly as he tried to instil his confidence in such feelings. Jo blinked up at him dumbly, her hands feeling numb in the cave he made around them. "I know you love me. Why else would you follow a stranger into a bar? Temperance has always been a pillar in your family, Jo and yet you broke it that night to kiss that woman and prove something to yourself. If you could love her then you couldn't love me."

She stared up at him entirely bemused by his reasoning. "But I liked it!"

"Ha!" Laurie exclaimed and before Jo had a moment to think he kissed her. Jo's heart froze in shock, his lips warm and wet against hers, his hands moving to grip her shoulders, holding her to him. It was different and yet the same. Jo heard nothing but blood in her ears, the distant song of the birds in the trees fading into oblivion. She couldn't feel her fingers.

Time passed in the trickle of the river and eventually Laurie pulled back, his breath short as he stared at Jo, judging her reaction in the dappled shade. For her part, Jo stared at his chest and tried to find blindly where her heart had gone.

What was happening?

Her lips tingled, like a current had passed through them and left the skin a slightly charred. She touched them, her eyes still focussed on the grey tulip-pattern of Laurie's waistcoat. Abigail's kiss had felt the same afterwards, as though her mouth still ghosted across Jo's though she was far away from the scene, her purse and fan clutched in her hands as she ran up the sidewalk.

Jo stepped back.

She looked up at Laurie, realisation dawning. Her eyes moved across the grove wildly as her mind raced. It was beginning to make sense to her now, she thought, the chapped feeling of her lips against her fingers keeping the connection to her understanding lest she deny it all and lose him forever. The black lace of Abigail's fan was nothing more than the moss fence was.

"Endureth all things," she quoted, feeling lighter than she had all year.

Laurie watched her cautiously and she allowed herself a brief smile that filled her insides, letting her heart sing as the orchestra had done all those months ago. As Laurie and Beth had on their piano. Jo reached out, gripping Laurie's waistcoat as she stood on her toes and dragged his lips back to hers.

She knew what this was, what she had hidden from herself, had mistaken in another's kiss, in another's dark eyes. Everything she had tried to pretend was nothing, all the feelings and desires, her darkness and guilt she had transferred onto Abigail's effervescence and obscurities. Abigail had no shape to fit into Jo's everyday life where Laurie reigned king.

Jo had planted every secret feeling shadowed by friendship and fear behind Abigail's black lace fan and now, as she kissed Laurie in the little grove everything was set right again.

His hands pressed into the small of her back and Jo smiled as their lips parted and pried, his black eyelashes pressing into her cheek as her fingers lost themselves in the thick curl of the hair he'd grown for her sake.

Now, now she could see those pearl-coloured gates without an ounce of shame.

_When that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away_


End file.
